Facebook’s much postponed job board is now scheduled for a launch perhaps in the next week or so.
Part of the Social Jobs Partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor and several non-profit career services, the new effort will be Facebook’s first searchable jobs database, and will launch with more than a million listings.
The new site opens the door for search firms, independents, and staffing agencies to broaden the reach of your job posts. If you already send your openings to your state workforce service, they should appear on the new Facebook career site when it goes live tomorrow morning. If you don’t already do that, now is a good time to add that distribution to your list. The downside is the state sites tend to attract a high number of unemployed; the upside is you gain access to millions of Facebook users.
The project was first reported in early July, and was to have launched in August. It was delayed then, and again in mid-September. The reasons for the postponements wasn’t disclosed. A source told me that Facebook has now given the go-ahead to launch the site, though, “we’ve seen this happen before (last minute postponements).”
Specific details for the launch site weren’t available. However, according to details first reported by The Wall Street Journal in July, the jobs site will aggregate listings from BranchOut, DirectEmployers Association, Jobvite, Monster, and Work4Labs. Both BranchOut, and Monster’s BeKnown, are social networking subgroups built on the Facebook platform, specifically for business and recruiting.
The Social Jobs Partnership was announced a year ago and launched on Facebook. It was a collaborative effort by Facebook, the Labor Department, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) providing links to resources and other content for job seekers.
The missing ingredient was a job board. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg long expected that recruitment would be a part of the Facebook platform. Until now, however, jobs weren’t searchable; employers bought job ads which are served to targeted site visitors based on behavioral and profile data.
The Social Jobs Partnership job board isn’t a commercial project, at least not for Facebook. Jobs listings from the participants will be offered at no additional charge. However, what Facebook learns from the project could easily be used to build a jobs delivery service of its own.
